Embodiments herein generally relate to identifying devices, and more particularly to methods and systems for determining the original equipment manufacturer of a rebranded device.
Most network management tools use the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) to manage devices. Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEM) sometimes sell their devices to other companies who rebrand the device, often with very limited internal changes to the device. These devices continue to provide richer or extended information under the OEM private SNMP arc. SNMP standards provide fields for storing information to identify a network device. But these are the standard fields often only indicate the “brand” manufacturer who rebrand the device, and do not indicate the OEM manufacturer.
Some network printers report that they are from one manufacturer (the brand manufacturer) but they are in fact rebranded devices from a separate second manufacturer, the OEM. These types of devices are difficult to manage using the brand manufacturer's programmatic interface, because it is often missing or limited, and does not provide the quality of interface that would be provided by the OEM's programmatic interface.